In John Bunyan’s great parable of life, the Pilgrim’s Progress, there’s a point where Christian and Hopeful are captured by the Giant Despair, locked in the dungeons of Doubting Castle and beaten unmercifully. But at dawn on Sunday, after days of misery, Christian suddenly realises how to escape. He says ‘What a fool I am to lie in a stinking dungeon when I could walk in liberty. I have a key, called Promise that will, I am persuaded, open any lock in doubting castle.’ And it did.
Promise was the key that freed them from despair, and it’s Promise that does it for us too – those great and precious promises like: ‘I am with you always, even to the end of the age’,’If God is for us, who can be against us?’, ‘Nothing can separate us from the love of God.’
What we have to do is remember to use it